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Proposal to cut housing fund worries agenciess; creates 88 bureaucracies
YOUNGSTOWN
Local agencies that have received millions of dollars over the years through the Ohio Housing Trust Fund for projects to address homelessness and support affordable housing for low-income residents are concerned about a proposed Senate budget amendment that would cut the fund in half.
In addition, according to Bill Faith, executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio, the amendment would return the Ohio Housing Trust Fund proceeds to the counties for distribution and create 88 county bureaucracies to fund housing.
The amendment requires that the county auditor, county recorder and county commissioner or their delegates determine by majority vote how the funds are to be used.
It’s one of the hundreds of changes that Senate Republicans made to the two-year, $71.3 billion budget.
“It is a terrible idea to have certain government offices unfamiliar with housing administration suddenly begin allocating housing dollars,” said Faith.
Leaders of local agencies involved in low-income housing agree and are campaigning with their local state elected officials to have the amendment removed.
The most concerning things are that there would be less funds available while trying to serve more people; and that the funds are being administered pretty efficiently by the Development Service Agency, said Nancy Voitus, executive director of the Catholic Charities Regional Agency.
The DSA has decades of experience of administering both federal and state housing resources. Allocations of HTF monies are based on recommendations of a 14-member advisory committee representing various sectors of the housing and lending industries and local governments, said Faith.
“It would be a serious blow and would hurt the most-vulnerable people in our community. We get a significant portion of our funding for our homeless and for transitional and permanent supportive housing in Mahoning and Trumbull counties through HTF,” said Teresa Boyce, Beatitude House operations manager.
“The amendment, if approved, would have a real negative impact on homeless people,” said April Caraway, executive director of the Trumbull County Mental Health and Recovery Board.
The trust fund is the only source of state money to deal with these issues, said Carol Bretz, executive director of the Community Action Agency of Columbiana County.
“We use $70,000 in trust-fund dollars to support our homeless shelter. It has 11 beds, and in 2014 we served 68 households comprised of 79 people. If our grants are cut by 50 percent, we may have to close the shelter, the only emergency shelter in the county that is not targeted to a special population,” Bretz said.
The HTF leverages federal and private resources in public/private partnerships as much as 9-to-1 to help stretch state dollars to meet the housing needs of military veterans, senior citizens, people with disabilities, and working families, Faith said.
The HTF was created in 1991 after voters approved a constitutional amendment making housing a public purpose. During the 2004-05 biennium budget session, the Legislature established a permanent, dedicated funding source through the Housing Trust Fee that is collected by county recorders. Currently the HTF is capped at $50 million annually, but has averaged less than that over the past few years, Faith said.
“This amendment is ... an ill-conceived notion that would create housing dysfunction across the board. Our most-vulnerable populations would be hurt the most, and that’s the exact opposite of what the citizens of Ohio voted for 25 years ago,” he said.